


Little Brother

by iluvaqt



Series: True Heart [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 04:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7670632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arianne told Tyrion a story once as a child, he never forgot it. Perhaps if Cersei had taken it to heart, she might have met a different fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Brother

**Author's Note:**

> My first GoT/ASOIAF story. Don't know if I'll write more but this just sort of wrote itself.

Jaime watched Cersei's expression grow cold, her beautiful features twisting to a sneer the longer she observed the elegant, exotic Princess of Dorne interact with their little brother.

Arianne had joined her uncle, Prince Oberyn on business with their father. Her father, Prince Doran had encouraged her to go as she had yet to visit their allies and as the crown princess, thought it important to get to know their surrounding kingdoms and it's rulers. The week long visit she had spent touring Casterly Rock and Lannisport with her personal guard and a handmaiden.

He had thought it odd that she had such light protection until he observed her training one morning in a secluded courtyard with her guard. She had twin slightly curved blades strapped beneath folds of her flowing gowns and she was swift and light on her feet like a Braavosi Water Dancer, each lunge and strike deadly. If her imposing 7ft guard, well armed and hard faced wasn't enough of a deterrent for the average thief or pirate, he had no doubt that the fool who tried their hand at harming or abducting the Princess would meet a bloody end by the lady's own hand.

"You promised a story," Tyrion announced quite loudly, rocking on his stunted bow legs.

The Princess' smile was wide and genuine, her eyes warm and crinkling at the corners. "So I did Lord Tyrion, if you are ready to hear it, perhaps we should find a place to sit and will begin my tale."

Tyrion ambled ahead and then opened a door with a flourish to usher their guest in. The guard passed first and then the Princess followed when her escort deemed it acceptable with a nod from the open doorway.

Arianne observed the stretch of the sea and cloud swept blue sky from the large balcony and smiled back at Tyrion. "This suits me well. In Dorne, such an open space as this late in the afternoon would prove quiet exhausting but the sun does not beat down so harshly here. The view is lovely," she said with a nod to the fishing boats and merchant ships cutting cross the open water. She rested her palms against the stone barrier, her jewelled bracelets clinking against the surface. "Your story, you have a fondness for animals, yes?"

Tyrion nodded and stepped onto a low bench to climb the barrier and sit opposite the Princess. In that position he was at eye level with Arianne and she noted this with a gentle smile.

"There was a wealthy man, who had a great gift. His gentle touch and kind heart meant that even the beasts of the field and creatures of the air had no fear of him. He trained them and nursed them, lame or blessed and earned a reputation of renown far and wide. One day a visiting lord observed the man about his work and watched as a golden feathered eagle descended the sky and landed on the man's extended arm. The creature was as big as a cat, it's wings when outstretched almost larger than the span of a grown man's arms. This great bird bowed its head to its master and after a short exchange, took flight again.

" 'I must have that grand creature,' the lord told the man. His greed and desire writ plainly for all to see. For not only was the bird regal and well trained, but it could speak."

She spoke in a put on parrot speak voice and Jaime chuckled, his eyes sparkling in good humour as he took in the rapturous look on his younger brother's face. Not only absorbing every word of the Princess' story but the animated expressions and gestures she exhibited while she told it.

"The lord wanted possession of the man's eagle. The man explained that it was not for sale. It was his companion. His most prized treasure. He had founded it abandoned as a boy, the little hatchling fallen from it's nest, it's wing broken. He healed it, nurtured it, trained it to adulthood. It was loyal to him, free to fly and roam, always returning to roost on its gilded rest stand at the end of the day.

"The lord grew angry but know that man would not bend, no matter how much gold or gems the lord offered. So instead before leaving by ship to return home, he paid a thief, who stole into the man's home in the dead of night. He sedated the bird and spirited it away.

"The lord kept the bird chained to a perch to keep it from fleeting. And for weeks he tried to coax it to talk. But it wouldn't. He brought in a falconer to train it. But the bird would never carry any messages and so they clipped its wings so it could only fly short distances and it could not escape back over the sea to it's master.

"The man mourned the loss of his companion and search for it, to no avail.

"The lord grow tired of the uncooperative, surly creature and eventually grew ignorant of it's care, dismissing the trainer.

"One day he passed by the tower where the bird was left to roost, a servant had kept the eagle fed and watered but the only view it of sky was a small window of blue, it's leg chained to it's iron perch.

" 'You dull impossible creature,' the lord yelled. 'I spent a small fortune on you. You're nothing but a large useless bag of dung and feathers. Perhaps you'd make good stuffing for a pillow when you're dead.' He struck out with his cane knocking the perch off balance.

"The great eagle extended its wings. The clipped feathers shed over the years and had been replaced by full, strong, golden ones. With a powerful thrust of beating wings it broke the weathered chain holding it captive and flew at the cruel greedy lord. It pecked out his eyes and fled the tower. After many years in captivity many would think it forgot its way home. But it didn't. The eagle returned to the man.

"Lord Tyrion, the story is a lesson. What is loved and treated with kindness, flying free will always return. What is held tightly, possessed and treated with cruelty can never be held forever."

 ::: ::: :::

Jaime threw the doors to the Great Hall of the Iron Throne wide. Days before they had seen the sails of the Iron Fleet approaching the Blackwater and the dragons that accompanied them. Cersei was enraged and ordered him to ready their army and defend the city. Ordered the smiths to work night and day to craft far reaching crossbows capable of firing iron arrows hard enough to pierce dragon scale.

 "Why are you here?" she bellowed, her face stormy. "As General of my army, your place is on the battlements with our men."

"The gates are open, the army have put down their arms."

"3 dragons and every man turns craven?"  Her face was a mask of fiery rage. Had she not used the remaining stores of Wildfire to blow up the Sept perhaps they might have flooded the bay and destroyed all the ships before they even got close to port.

Wordlessly he swept to the side and nodded to someone her beyond sight.

Cersei was surprised and quickly her anger built to explosive ire at the sight of her son's murderer. He had the gall to seek her presence. His Queen's Hand brooch displayed proudly on his chest as he walked beside the silver haired Targaryen princess. The self proclaimed Mother of Dragons. The Dragon Queen.

Cersei nodded at Qyburn and he hurried from her side only to be intercepted by Jaime. Who slid his sword through the maester's chest till it exited his back. A clean strike through the heart.

"The abominations you crafted in the Black Cells will not come to your aid. They sleep eternally, their bodies finally free of your cursed designs," he entoned his voice hard, his eyes glittering with disgust.

"Ser Robert, kill them all," Cersei ordered her Queensguard, her champion, the late Gregor Clegane.

With only a small wave of her hand, a formality of approval to engage, Queen Daenayrs allies from Dorne; young women, raised warriors each of them, Oberyon's daughters, Obara, Tyene and Nymeria skillfully engaged the Cersei's menacing armored guard.

Jaime flinched at the Mountain's heavy and wide swipe that would have separated less agile opponents heads from their bodies. But the princesses of Dorne were quick, and their acrobatics swept them from the path of his reach. While Ser Robert Strong, formally The Mountain's swipes and arches were brutally strong as his name suggested, he was brutish and lumbering. His opponents were swift and graceful. Working seamlessly in tandem, they quickly disarmed him, de-handed him and peeled away his armor with precise strikes at the leather cords binding them together. The pieces fell away like peel from a citrus fruit. His neck exposed without the armor, his head soon rolled along the stone floor. Even headless, the creature continued to flail in attack. They had learned from the disposal of the creatures in the Black Cells that the only way to destroy Qyburn's creations was cremation. Cersei screamed her displeasure and moved to attack, pulling Widow's Wail from the scabbard that hung low on the belt at her hips. She charged at the Dragon Queen who stood, regal and unarmed.

Arianne swept out a blade from beneath her golden cloak and blocked the Valyrian blade from meeting its intended target. With a push, she drove Cersei back, the golden haired queen stumbling a few steps. 

Jaime watched as his sister swung with untrained sweeps and thrusts, each stroke battered wide, yet she refused to yield. She did not spare him a glance, her attention focused on the subject blocking her vengeance but he wasn't spared her ire. "Spineless, traitorous fool! You'd turn on your family? Your Queen. This is your love? Your loyalty? You are not my brother, you are not my twin. I curse you. You and that little beast you set free can rot in the Seven Hells. He killed our mother, killed our father, killed our beloved Joffery, and now he dooms us all. That Targaryen bitch will burn us all."

"Not one life was lost when she entered King's Landing, sister, while you have burned a third of the city, yourself."

Cersei's gaze flew to him and her eyes widened, her mouth open in disbelief at the unmistakable anger she heard in his voice. Her shock allowed Arianne to relieve her of her blade and drive her to her knees. "You let them in," she hissed, her lips twisting in a disgusted sneer.

Jaime inclined his head with a slow nod. "I ordered the gates open, and the men to stand aside."

"You killed my father, my brother and my sister when you burned the Sept. You escaped your trial against the Faith but not your judgement." Willas Tyrell came forward from where he stood beside his grandmother. He was not clad in pretentious armor like his father had favoured when playing knight and lord of Highgarden's army. With a raised gloved hand, he made a signal that seemed to go unanswered before there was a high pitched shriek and a golden eagle dove from the open window and swooped at Cersei.

She had ducked the approaching attack of the creature while in Arianne's grasp but the eagle had merely grazed her cheek before gliding back toward the heir to Highgarden. The shallow cut on Cersei's face beaded with blood in rich crimson before it spilled down her pale face. She narrowed her piercing green eyes at Willas as the bird landed lightly at his feet. He bent, resting heavily on his cane as he removed a metal claw that had been attached to one of it's claws and tucked it in a small pouch at his waist.

Tyrion frowned over the entire exchange, growing ever more perplexed and wary when Arianne suddenly released Cersei, allowing her to stand but keeping the treasonous woman's blade firmly underfoot, her dark gaze trained on his sister's every movement.

Cersei had always been a master at played courtesies; displaying the bearing of a highborn woman, the correct posture, the carefully spoken words, the just so angle of her chin, the art of peering down her noise at those she deemed lesser, her false smile really a sneer to those that knew how to look past the beautiful graceful façade she projected. Even unguarded, disarmed and clearly facing certain death if she continued to goad the Queen with her insolence and treason, she would not bend. "Take your throne, Targaryen and watch the Seven Kingdoms tear you apart. You know nothing of Westeros, nothing but a slip of a girl raised in exhile across the Narrow Sea surrounded by horselords and former slaves. You have dragons but I have my name, the Lannister name. We will not go quietly. You think that half-man speaks for our House? I will be avenged, you will be hunted, all you hold dear ripped from you and turned to ash, if you do not surrender your claim here."

Daenerys couldn't resist a small twitch of her lips at the bold stance and words of this Mad Queen. Varys drifted to her side from the shadows. And whispered to her that the Iron Born had accepted the surrender of the Lannister forces and their Bannermen encamped outside the city. Just as Ser Jaime had commanded to his lieutenants, Ser Bronn and Ser Addam. The Gold Cloaks also continued to allow the Unsullied to pass through the gates unimpeded to restore order, bring supplies into the starving, and broken citizens.

"Cersei Lannister, usurper to my throne, and for your many heinous crimes against my allies and the destruction and desecration of the Great Sept of Baelor, you are sentenced to death," she spoke in a firm voice that carried and echoed through the largely empty hall.  

Tyrion watched his sister's face turn ugly as she lunged toward Daenerys, surprisingly no one moved to stop her. Not even Grey Worm who stood a little ahead of them to the left of their Queen. Tyrion had raised his hand readying to put himself bodily between his enraged sister and his Queen but she seemed to stumble and sway well short of her mark. She blinked in confusion and put a hand to her throat before staring at him in growing horror.

"What have you done?" she croaked. Blood pooled and trickled from the corner of her mouth and stained her teeth. Her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor. She crawled and clawed moving away from them to where Jaime stood over Qyburn's body at the other end of the dias. She made it half way up the stairs before she lay on her back, turning her face to his older brother. "You betrayed me.  You think they will spare you, Kingslayer," she growled, spitting blood to clear her mouth. "We entered together and we will die together," she said continued with a twisted bloodied smile.

"It is within Queen Daenerys' right to seek justice for her father, and I am not afraid. A woman of more honor and valor than anyone I've ever known has helped me reclaim a small measure of what was lost to me, sister. It will never be your face that I seek in the here after. She may be a little put out that I will not serve at her side and guard her back against the Others in the war to come, but I meet my fate with my heart at peace. And hope that she is proud of the man I tried to be."

"That simpleton of an ugly sow," Cersei sneered. Seemingly unable to bear the sight of her twin any longer, she turned her hateful glare on Tyrion. "As the valonqar chokes the life..." her words slurred and ceased, her sightless eyes boring through them, empty, soulless. It was done.

Arianne alighted the stone steps and stooped down. With gentle fingers, she closed the woman's eyelids to cover her lifeless gaze that had often in life blazed with an unchecked passion that rivalled Wildfire. "It is a rare poison that coated the blade Aeksion wore. How did she know of it?" she asked of Tyrion.

It was his brother who answered. Jaime shook his head. "It was the prophecy she heard as a child. She hated and feared Tyrion believing him to be the valonqar, from that old mage's words, her 'little brother'. He never raised a hand against her."

Tyrion coughed and gave Jaime a querying look with a raised eyebrow. "I am Hand of the rightful Queen, brother. Her death while not by my will or design, was my Queen's command."

Jaime wiped his sword clean on his red Lannister cloak and held it stretched across his open palms, one flesh and one golden, as he descended the steps to the small party at the foot of the throne. He knelt at Daenerys' feet and placed the sword on the floor. "My life is yours. I accept your judgement for the life of your father." 

Daenerys looked down on him with cool eyes, her face a regal, unreadable mask. "You allowed us to enter the city unimpeded. You served your people first, sparing them further suffering. I know the sins of my father, yet his life was not yours to take. For breaking your oath as Kingsguard and betraying your sworn duty, you are stripped of your position. As first born son of Tywin Lannister, you are also stripped of your lands and birthright as heir to Casterly Rock. The rights of which will be given to your younger brother Tyrion Lannister. However, I am not without mercy, and as I have been informed, a war is coming. The war against those that follow The Great Other and bring the Winter with them. I need commanders, men who can lead and fight in defense of the realm of the living. You will lead my first wave of reinforcements I sent North to the Wall. And you will report to my Hand but you will never return to King's Landing, this is your sentence. You will fight and triumph in the name of the Queen and in service to the Realm, or you will die in the attempt."

Jaime bowed his head and stayed kneeling, the gravity of the grace he'd been offered leaving him listless and bewildered. After a long exhale he turned his face to his brother. "I will live?" he questioned softly.

"Live and fight, Jaime. Hold your honor. Live free of her honeyed poisoned grasp and embrace the gift that you have been given."

Arianne put a hand on his shoulder and he took her offered arm to pull himself to his feet. Without a hand to brace and no sword to lean on, it was difficult to rise in full armour. Jaime bowed once again to the Queen. "Seek justice, do kindess and serve with honor, Jaime Lannister."

And all at once, Jaime remembered why his heart had tightened in his chest at the sight of that great eagle. The story she'd once told them many years ago, before the Rebellion, when there was only innocence and eagerness for adventure and knightly duty. "As my brother serves, your Grace. I will serve you with honor for the rest of my days."

Drogon lumbered through the open doors to the Great Hall of the Red Keep. Daenerys looked down to Tyrion. "Remember what I said about the wheel, my Lord Hand?"

Tyrion nodded once. "It was an inspiring speech, my Queen. A noble and gallant vision, how could one forget. To aspire not to rule, but to be a fair and wise leader."

"And to achieve that, we must break the wheel. We must destroy that which so many coveted and spilled innocent blood to possess. Drogon," she beckoned. Instinctively, perhaps more for self preservation's sake, everyone cleared a path to allow the black dragon to stand at the silver-haired Queen's side. With a small smile, she nodded toward the end of the Hall. "Dracarys," she commanded.

The once grand collection of bent great swords, The Iron Throne was reduced to red and molten metal. Nothing but a shapeless pile of liquid steel. "The new Westeros will rise from the ashes."

Like the Dragon Queen before it; Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, Tyrion mused inwardly. She would rule. A strong woman who believed in freedom, peace and true leadership. Long may she reign. She'd made a believer out of a life long cynic and he was grateful that not only had he survived to witness that unexpected revelation, but that the only family to ever truly loved and accepted him had lived to see it also.

With all that he'd lived through to this point, his heart had treacherously inflamed a spark that he dared never speak of it aloud; hope. He'd been to the Wall before. He wasn't looking forward to the cold, but he was at least aware of how to deal with it. Their army of Unsullied and horselords would need much preparation. Most, if not all, never witnessed snow or frost in their lifetime. He tilted his head thoughtfully trying to envision Grey Worm in wolf or bear fur, he'd need a pelt for a hat for certain with most warmth being lost through ones head.

"Care to share your good humour, Lord Tyrion?" 

"Your Grace, much preparation is needed. As the Stark's loved to proclaim, Winter is coming. And we of the South, are certainly not dressed for it," he said eyeing the gooseflesh on the beautiful dark skin of both their Dornish allies, Missandei and Grey Worm not nearly well covered by leather and cloth. At least Daenerys herself was dressed in a thick pale blue cloak, blocking out the chill. 

His Queen's eyes twinkled a little, now doubt understanding his mental picture of her men weathering the fierce cold of the North. "Indeed. Much still remains to be done this day. Come, I would see to our people first." 


End file.
